Seven women of different ages spoke about their victimization during the 1974 invasion of Cyprus.
The rape of a young woman by a Turkish soldier in front of other civilian women, the night they spent in the field on the road to uprooting, the pain of women who leave their homes, who wait in vain for a phone call from their lost husbands, experiencing the fear, uncertainty, and loneliness of refugee life, or crowding into a shack with dozens of others, are some of the poignant images captured in the drawings of Georgia Michael, a 23-year-old graduate of Frederick University’s Graphic Arts Department.
These drawings form the main part of her thesis entitled “The Woman’s Gaze of War” (which is written in English) and are essentially a fresh, female look at the 1974 Turkish invasion and its consequences on the lives of those who lived through it, “especially the hidden and unknown aspect of this historical event, aiming to give voice to the experiences and memories of women,” as she told Phileleftheros.
Georgia was born and resides in the community of Akruda in Limassol with her parents. She has four other sisters who are 33, 31, 25, and 20 years old respectively. “My motivation in choosing the subject of my thesis – she told us – was my desire to hear women’s stories about the tragic events of the invasion, since usually what is heard is the story of men, while historians exclude the female experience”.
Georgia Michael’s drawings are based on the interviews she conducted with seven women who were victims of the invasion, refugees from occupied areas of the island, some of whom lost loved ones such as husbands and other relatives in the war and who lived in difficult conditions, away from their homes and their old lives, waiting in vain for their return to their homes.
